The Power in the Stars
by sky-light-heaven
Summary: When a new witch turns up in Mystic Falls things take a twist but weather for better or worse no one knows. AU set after Bonnie's return, but before they left Kai in the 1903 prison world. Rated M for occasional bad language, violence and sexual content. Please comment and tell me what you think about the story - I could use some feedback.
1. Chapter 1

The knocking continued and I opened the door, still in my towel and my hair hanging around my shoulders in dripping strands. Kai was at the door. When I opened it he looked determined to tell me something but then his eyes traveled down my body and he seemed to have forgotten all he wanted to tell me. I closed the door so that only my face was visible, hiding myself behind the door. I was sure my cheeks were red with shame.

"Uughh" he began furrowing his brow and narrowing his eyes. He turned his head aside and rubbed the back of his neck. Then raised a hand "I'll umm… I'll come back in… in a while." He looked at me again and then away. "Okay." He walked away with a quick pace and almost flew down the stairs.

"Okay then" I whispered after I closed the door. My heart was beating fast and it was only partially because I knew that he was once a sociopath that slaughtered his family. I put a hand on my chest and leaned against the door. I could see my eyes wide in the mirror. I stood in front of it staring at my face. I shook my head violently and drops of water landed on the mirror. "Get yourself together, girl." I rubbed my face a few times and looked at it again. "You cannot give in to his charm and his jawline and his eyes… Stop it!" I yelled at myself and turned my back on the mirror. I put on my underwear and my bra. I threw on an old tee and I contemplated a pair of old sweats but then decided that it was too warm for that. I sat at the little desk and opened a drawer in which I held my necklace. The only thing that still reminded me of my family and where I came from. There was a knock on the door and I quickly closed the drawer.

"Only open the door if you are willing to talk to me." Kai said on the other side of the door. I stopped mid-pace and stared at the door. Was I willing to talk to him? Before I could muster and answer even to myself I was opening the door. "Oh, you opened." He sounded genuinely surprised.

"Yeah." I said not knowing how to respond and opened the door wider. "Come in." I said a bit cautious. He took a few fast steps as if afraid that I would change my mind and close the door in his face.

"It's very… artsy." He said looking around my room. Stefan and Damon had allowed me to stay in one of the spare bedrooms in the house since Bonnie seemed so found of me. Plus I believe I was starting to grow on Damon, even though he kept shooting sarcastic remarks my way. It wasn't artsy – it was messy. And not the cute kind of messy where my bed was made but it looked like someone had been lying on top of it with a blanket. Or like there were a few drawings on the desk and a few pencils rolling around them. It was a full-on clutter. Books were scattered everywhere and my clothes weren't even close to ordered in the open closet, my bed was unmade and the towel from earlier was on the chair.

"That's nice of you to say" he chuckled but didn't turn towards me but kept staring at the books. "So what did you want to talk about?"

"Oh, you know this, that. World hunger, cancer, death, magic, your current attire." He shrugged his shoulders and finally turned to me. I looked down at the t-shirt that fell mid-thigh. I've worn dresses more revealing. "Let's start with you telling me what you have done to everyone?" he waved his hands pointing at me then himself then me again almost screaming.

"I… I haven't done anything to you. To any of you." I stepped back and tried not to look scared, though I was. He was one of the few people that managed to scare me shitless like he did.

"Yeah, okay. Then how do you explain this: Bonnie is having hard time trusting anyone, even her closest friends, let alone me, ever since she came back. Then you showed up and she suddenly opens up and pours out all emotions that she has been bottling up?" He walked towards me while he talked until he was a few inches away. "I don't believe it's a coincidence." He whispered. At any other moment if he was this close I'd feel afraid but now I was angry at him and attracted to him. All I wanted to do was reach and follow the line of his jaw but I suppressed that desire.

"And maybe Bonnie was too afraid that they might reject her. Maybe she was scared of what she had become while she was alone there. I just met her and that's exactly why she trusts me. I never knew her before you happened." I couldn't resist and hit him in the chest with an opened palm trying to push him away but he barely moved. "Maybe she was afraid of you" I hissed at him. I felt flames rising in me and I could feel my clenched fist getting hotter and so was my open palm so I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself. I began to lower my hand but he caught it and kept it in place.

"Then what are you doing to me. I don't like this emotion thing I'd like a refund." He whispered eyes staring into mine with pain and regret. "I apologize. I didn't mean to start a fight. At least I think I didn't." he let go of my hand and sighed. "There's just something about you that drives me up the fucking wall."

"Well, the feeling is mutual. I said and put my hands on my hips. "Is there anything else or you just came here to accuse me of treachery?"

"Yeah, there is, actually." He said and with a few paces he was so close I could feel the heat radiating from him. He placed a hand on my neck deliberately slow and kissed me. It wasn't like I expected him to kiss – it was slow and careful but I wanted more. I wrapped my hands around his neck and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss. He tangled his hands in my hair and pulled it a bit. I moaned and felt him smirk. He pushed me back until my head hit the wall. I inhaled sharply and started laughing as a reaction to the pain. He looked at me a little worried and I kissed him again.

"I'm fine" I said and pulled him down to my eye level. One of his hands rested on the back of my head as a buffer between the wall and me and the other slid up my shirt. His hand was creasing my side and my back. He pulled it up and helped me take my shirt off, then he took a look at me and smirked again. He tilted his head and pressed his lips to my neck and went down slowly until he reached my collar bone. My hands roamed his stomach and chest restlessly as he made his way from my collar bone to my chest. He looked at me and pulled his shirt through his head throwing it on the floor next to mine. I hurried to undo his jeans while I could still see them and he shuffled out of them. He put his hands on my waist and picked me up. I wrapped my legs around his hips, I could feel his erection press against me. He wrapped one hand around my waist to keep me in place while his other hand unclasped my bra and threw it on the floor. He walked towards the bed and knelt on it to place me there and instead of falling on me. He kissed me again and stood up. I arched my back feeling as if he took all the heat from my body with him. He reached for his jeans a got out his wallet. From inside it he retrieved a condom and started walking towards me again. I wiggled out of my underwear and threw it in a random direction, while he quickly took off his and rolled the condom on his swollen shaft. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him.

"I'm amazing, ain't I?" he said with a wide smile on his face.

"Shut up and come here." I said and extended and arm towards him.

"Yes ma'am." He said and joined me on the bed carefully placing himself between my legs and kissed me again. With one quick thrust he entered me and we both moaned and he stood still for a moment before he started moving agonizingly slow in me.

"Kai" I moaned and hid my face in his neck gently biting and sucking on it "faster" I whispered into his skin and he obeyed with a groan as he started moving faster and deeper. I wrapped my legs around his hips and dug my heels into his thighs. He was supporting his weight on one hand and his other hand was on my waist restricting my movement while I desperately tried to angle myself.

"Shh, love" she whispered and kissed me. "We'll get there" he kissed me again and thrust in me faster and deeper than before. I let out a scream I tried to bite on and he moaned. "Again" he said and repeated the move I let out a louder scream. He let go of my waist and picked up a fast tempo and I dig my nails in his back and angled my hips so that he was hitting the spot. It didn't take me long after that to go over the edge feeling as if fire spread inside me as well as outside.

"Kai!" I drove my hands down his back leaving trails with my nails. The contractions of my walls made him cum as well and he let out a loud moan into my neck. He then collapsed next to me, sweat running down his face. He took my chin in his hand and kissed me passionately. He got up and went to the bathroom, while I put on my tee and my underwear and picked his up from the ground. He walked in the room and stood still, eyes wide open. I followed his gaze to the bed. "Oh, my." I said silently not knowing what else to say.

"That's an understatement." He let out a laugh and reached for my hand and gave it a gentle kiss. "Did you do this? Cuz it sure as hell wasn't me."

"Well -" I remembered how it felt like fire and bit my lower lip. "I think so" he laughed a bit louder this time and pulled me to him. He kissed the top of my head and I hid my face in his chest.

"It's not that bad – it's just a bit… um, charred. I think it would make it." He climbed up and crooked his finger at me. "Come here"

"This was one hell of a fight we had." I said as I settled in the crook of his arm. "Do you fight with everyone like this?" he pretended to think about it.

"Well, with Damon things usually go a little different, but with Bonnie…" he made pause and pulled me closer to him. I slapped his chest and he let out a sharp breath. "Ouch" he said pretending to be hurt. "I'm joking, I'm joking. Jeez." He wrapped his other hand around me as well and put it behind my head.

"What are we gonna do tomorrow?" I asked through a yawn. "Do we act like we did before or…?" I didn't finish my sentence because I didn't actually know how to end it.

"I don't think we can act very different." He said and reached over to the nightstand where a switch for the lights was. He flicked it and returned to my side pulling me even closer than before. "But I suppose I'd at least like to kiss you more often." He placed a kiss on my head and whispered "Now go to sleep. We'll take care of everything in the morning." The last thing I remember was how sweet he smelled.


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up and the first thing that rushed into my mind was last night. "Oh my God!" I exclaimed and sat up. I looked around but saw that the side of bed where he had been last night was empty. I almost expected to hear some cocky remark coming from somewhere but there was just silence. I got up and into the bathroom. I took off my underwear and t-shirt and threw them in the laundry basket. I got in the shower and stared at the wall for a moment remembering last night and how he touched me. I could still feel as if my skin was on fire. I switched the cold water and put my hair up. The water cooled my skin and cleared my head. I got out of the shower and reached for the empty hanger – last night I didn't get to hand my towel. I ran to the chair and wrapped my body in it. I got dressed quickly putting on jeans and a tank top not wanting to look too formal. But then came the hard part – I couldn't force myself to get down to the kitchen. I knew that he may not even be in – Damon and Elena were supposed to come home today and he's not exactly in their good graces. I took a breath and opened the door.

What came next caught me off guard. Damon and Elena were talking quietly to one another and the moment I walked in they looked up, Elena smiled. "Hey Xenia." Said Elena and stepped closer to me. "There is something we need to talk about." Damon came closer as well and gestured to the couch.

"Take a sit, X. You're not going to like this." I sat down feeling ever more scared than I was of seeing Kai. "When we came back home, Kai was here." I shifted nervously. Did they know? Was that an intervention? "Now don't freak out, I know you don't like being left alone with him." Damon sat next to me and Elena joined his side. "Now, he's a jackass and is out of his mind but did you by any chance missed to tell him you're a witch? Cuz this morning he seemed more than a little shocked by the fact that you belong to a coven." Said Damon and smiled. "The poor bastard must have been up all night – he looked so exhausted. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing the bastard baffled but we should not really push him to the edge. He might snap." I tried my best to swallow and my heart quickened.

"He knows of my coven?" I asked

"Well, that's what he kept repeating." Said Elena and brushed her hair behind her ear. "Xenia, is everything okay?" I looked towards the door.

"It is not. It will be really dangerous for me if the Gemini find out I'm here. Bad for both me and him. I need to explain everything to him as soon as possible. Where might he be?"

"I'll call him" said Damon and got up. My head was dizzy. I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. Elena's hand ran reassuringly up and down on my back.

"He's not answering" informed us Damon.

"It's all going to be okay."

"Always the optimist, aren't we, Elena." Kai's voice came from the front door. I heard his quick steps in my direction and I stiffened my back. Suddenly he stopped and I turned around. Damon had him by the collar, Bonnie right behind them. She looked to me and quickly passed Kai. "So, tell us everything, Xenia. Tell us the fascinating story of why we shouldn't kill you. And make it convincing – the only thing that stands between me and your dead body lying on the bottom of the ocean right now is Damon." Damon pushed him back and both men came to sit around the small table.

"You little weasel. You went through my stuff last night, didn't you? While I was sleeping after…" I closed my mouth just in time. "Why? What made you do that?"

"General curiosity." He shrugged.

"You know what they say about the witch and the bag." I said back and extended my hand to him. "My necklace. Give it back." He reached in his pocket and placed his palm to mine, the cold necklace between our hands. That's when I felt it. He was trying to suck my magic. It felt like… fire. "Stop it." I pulled my hand and clenched my fist.

"I feel it, I know I'm channelling your magic, but you don't seem affected by that. It didn't stop you from setting the… the fire." So we were both playing that game. Good to know.

"Wait, you did what?" asked Damon. "And how did _you_ know about it." He pointed at the other witch.

"A nightmare. She had a nightmare while I was there. I saw her set the bed on fire. I tried to steal some of her magic but it didn't work. Just like it didn't work now."

"How much do you know about my coven, Kai?"

"Not much. It turns out we lost your family's trace around the beginning of XVIIIth century."

"Well before the Gemini coven came to the US we were part of a greater family, our covens." I started and leaned forward to claps my necklace on. "Our clan, Astral, had existed parallel with many religions and empires. But our ancestors decided to separate. There were 12 branches to begin with. The Gemini came here, the Aries, my coven, went to Russia." I stopped for a second. "This is where it gets complicated. You can think of having magic as a genetic trait, carried by at least one of your parents. Now, if your bloodline is 'pure' meaning you have only magical genes you are more powerful, however this led to a lot of incest, so most of the covens dropped the practice of pure blood, however Kai's… abnormality can only be caused if his bloodline was somehow 'impure'. My coven kept that practice until the end, but one rebelled, my mother. Thus I resemble Kai, with one detail, none of my coven lived long enough to find out." I sighed and looked around.

"But if you have no magic of your own where do you get it from? I've seen you do simple spells, multiple times?" asked Bonnie.

"I'll get to that. But I have the feeling that if I skip directly to it I'll take away from Kai the possibility to mock me for the terrible mistakes my family made, most likely because of all that incest. Plus, that's what he wants – to see me tell you my biggest secret and risking everything." I looked Kai straight in the eyes "So my family lived in a small village near the Tsar's castle, we dealt with small magic just to help out and we mostly traded herbs and medicine for food. But one of our coven wanted more from life. So he went to the palace, dressed like a monk, they were a big deal back then, and pretended to cure the Tsarevich's haemophilia with a little spell and a few dry leaves. The prince's mother was so grateful to him that she kept him around and soon he became her unofficial lover and started 'advising' the Tsar on state matters. His name was Rasputin and he was killed along with the rest of my coven in 1917, when the Tsar was officially removed from power. I, being an infant, stayed safe in the village with the other kids. I didn't get to grow up with them because my father's mother found me and took me with her. So you can say that I grew up with the Russian gypsies. As it turned out our coven decided to protect their legacy by putting spells on the children back in the village – the magic of those who died would transfer between the living kids. Slowly in matter of 10 years they all died and I felt my powers getting stronger." I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking. A tear rolled down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away. I could not let anyone see how the memories hurt me. I intertwined my fingers and continued. "But that magic was too much for me to control, as Kai already knows if you take a person's magic by merging you take on some of their traits. And when I lose control over the magic, which happened quite often while I grew up, the dead witches of Aires coven take control over me. And they are not nice, believe me. That's the story of my coven."

"Why don't you tell them why the Gemini are still trying to hunt you down and lock you away?" asked Kai, but his voice was no longer daring. There was pain, as if he expected me to go on a killing spree rather to tell my sad life story. As if he felt for me, but was too proud to admit it.

"As I said, I lost control quite often and I would kill everyone that stood in my way. Whole towns at times. The word of this got to the Gemini first, but the only way a coven's magic can be drawn away is if all 12 covens some together. But the only other I knew about was Leo. The last Leo I heard of lived in Bulgaria. He gave up his magic to become a man of the church and later decided to free the country from Ottoman reign.* He was hanged for treason. Before I was even born. I've never heard of another Leo witch since. So the Gemini had no other way of stopping me, but to trap me – ideally in a prison world."

"Okay, wait a second. You are a witch, born in 1917? Now I'm not an expert but I think if witches had the power to look that young for so long we would have at least heard of it." Said Damon and looked at Bonnie "What'ya think, Bon-Bon?"

"That this is not the whole story." Said Bonnie and looked at me and for the first time in years I felt alone and scared.

"The priests got to me first. They placed on me what is called the 'Judas curse' – to roam the earth and witness all the betrayal and sadness. I didn't think it would work but I haven't aged a day since 1932, so I guess it did."

"So you are an immortal witch, a bit younger than me-" said Damon and I turned my head to the side. If for him a bit was 53 years, then yes. "-who can at any moment go all psycho?" He looked around the room. "Well just peachy! We just got this now-slightly-less-maniacal-than-before idiot in rails and now we have you." He threw his hands in the air and got up. "I blame Stefan and his soft spot for… well anything really."

"She's not going to go off. She's not a bomb." Said Elena and looked at Damon with narrowed eyes. She turned to Kai "Right?"

"She needs to dabble in some serious magic to lose control." He said reluctantly. He now felt bad about lying. "She hasn't been like that since the end of the Second World War."

"Well then what was all the fuss about? You acted as if it was the end of the world." Asked Elena.

"I…" he looked at her. Was it because we slept together and he didn't know about me? Did he feel betrayed or lied to? "I did it because if she does go all one-flew-over-cuckoo's-nest not even I can stop her. I may have both Luke and Jo's magic, but she has about a 100 dead witches inside her." Kai looked at Bonnie and smiled politely. She still looked at him like she would melt his face off. "Bon knows what it's like to have a dead witch in your head, right? You've been there. And now multiply this by 100 and add almost as many years of suppressed anger from every single one of them." He looked at me and I could see how last night flashed before his eyes.

"So she's not a bomb, she's a nuke." Asked Damon and leaned forward. "Am I the only one that sees how crazy this is? I mean this is too suicidal even for us, and god knows we've done some crazy shit."

"Damon, can I talk to you?" asked Elena and pulled him by the hand and out of the room. This left Kai, Bonnie and me alone in the room but soon Bonnie got up and looked around.

"I can't… I'll be in the library if you need me, Xenia." Without as much as a glance at Kai she left the room. For a while we sat there across the coffee table no one saying anything.

"Was everything a lie?" I was quiet for a moment and the looked him straight in the eyes.

"My real name is Aksiniya. It means calm, smart, accurate and efficient. They called me Asya. I changed it to Xenia when I moved to Paris in 1951. It means beautiful, and bubbly. They sound similar but are very different in meaning. I was the embodiment of Baba Yaga in most eastern European countries. You know, the bad witch that steals children and eats them if they are naughty? As you may have guessed I didn't enjoy it very much so I moved west. And now you know everything there is to know about me." He was silent for a moment before he spoke.

"Both names suit you well." He smiled and I blushed. "I'm sorry. I know it's not easy to be rejected, I should have come to you first. Just I'm still not so good with this emotion thing and I couldn't stop myself from going through your stuff and the necklace shocked me, especially after last night."

"What happened last night exactly?" We both jumped back and I hit my head in the hard end of the couch. We looked at Bonnie standing in the doorway of the library. "There seem to have been a lot of stuff going on. You set the bed on fire" she pointed at me "And you were there to see it happen. Not only that, but you were also able to get near her and try to drain her magic?" Kai opened his mouth first but Bonnie cut him off "No, no wait. There's more. Because you don't seem to be able to sneak up on her at all but last night you went through her room and she didn't notice? Please say you drugged her. That way I can kill you and I'll have a good enough reason." I tried to think of something but all that came out of me was:

"Uugh…" I felt as if my whole body was being twisted again and again.

*A historical remark to the past of Bulgaria and one of the freedom fighters they had when they were still under Ottoman Yoke – Vasil Ivanov 'Levski' Kunchev (1837-1873). Levski means lion-like.


End file.
